New Amnesty International Report Calls for Decriminalization

It
just couldn’t be clearer. “Amnesty International is opposed to the
criminalization or punishment of activities related to the buying or
selling of consensual sex between adults.” Thus begins a recently leaked
document from the famed human rights organization calling for an end to
prohibitions on sex work. Ironically perhaps, the most important, and
controversial portion of this document may be the definitions section.

The
section defines the words “sex work,” sex worker,” “child,” and
“criminalization.” Amnesty International in a few sentences does what
few other “human rights” organizations working in the sex work and human
trafficking sphere seem to be able to do. Amnesty here defines sex work
as work, making a clear delineation between employment and slavery.

Human
trafficking is a very real problem. But when it comes to trafficking
for the purpose of sex, proponents of legislation have left the
definition of trafficking purposefully murky. Definitions frequently
include anyone who travels to do sex work.

This is
because many of the prominent activists and organizations behind
anti-trafficking efforts are opposed to sex work and/or migration. As
Maggie McNeill details, anti-prostitution campaigners paint the typical sex worker as a child slave, while governments use anti-trafficking laws to restrict migration. And that ill-intended confusion muddies the entire debate.

The
debate is worth having, as “Individuals make transactional arrangements
with regard to sexual relationships that are not always a matter of
direct coercion, but rather a reflection of limited options.” But in our
well-meaning attempts to recognize the structural and cultural limits
women face as they try to better themselves, we cannot lose sight of the
admittedly limited choices women can make. We cannot open doors for
women by further limiting their available options or denying them agency
by calling their choices coercion.

The fact is, as
Amnesty International points out, “Criminalizing or otherwise punishing
people for their choices in selling or buying consensual sex in any way
fails to address these structural inequalities, and rather serves to
further disempower individuals.”

In other words, to
help poor women we “must focus on empowering the disenfranchised and
directly addressing structural disadvantages such as poverty, not on
devaluing their decisions and choices or criminalizing the contexts in
which they live their lives.”

The document calls for
sex workers to be engaged in any legislating on their behalf. This is
in part due to the fact that, thus far, laws which restrict the sex
trade have only one result which can be empirically demonstrated over
time and wherever they’re implemented. Sex work regulations drive the
sex trade further underground. This inhibits the ability of NGOs and law
enforcement to work with sex workers to find and rescue victims of
force, fraud, or coercion.

The Amnesty International
document states: “We believe human rights principles requires
policy-makers to value the voices of those who are directly affected by
inequality and discrimination.”

Along similar lines, the UN Human Rights Council last year published a report from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women which criticizes anti-trafficking measures which restrict sex workers.

According
to the report, “Sex workers are negatively impacted by anti-trafficking
measures.” Specifically, “The criminalisation of clients has not
reduced trafficking or sex work, but has increased sex workers’
vulnerability to violence, harmed HIV responses, and infringed on sex
workers’ rights.”

Furthermore, “Anti-trafficking
discussions on demand have historically been stymied by
anti-prostitution efforts to eradicate the sex work sector by
criminalising clients, despite protests from sex workers rights groups
and growing evidence that such approaches do not work.”

Amnesty
International and the UN are just two of the latest human rights
organizations who have been able to see through the appeals to emotion
and hidden agendas around human trafficking. Looking at the actual
effects of legislation for women and men in the sex trade reveals that
legalization and decriminalization are the only humane and
right-respecting ways forward.

Cathy Reisenwitz is an Editor at Young Voices and a D.C.-based writer and political commentator. She is Editor-in-Chief of Sex and the State
and her writing has appeared in Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, Reason
magazine, Talking Points Memo, the Washington Examiner and the Daily
Caller.